Often I find myself experiencing a disconnect between what I am feeling emotionally and what I am able to convey about those emotions verbally. Consequently, I have found solace in my ability to visually express myself through the artistic release of painting. My pieces have an overwhelming nature that forces viewers to look at their imagery holistically without giving them the ability to rest in any one area of the energized textural patterns. This all-over “field,” heightened by the cohesive layering of paint, derives no focus or directed sense of movement but rather encapsulates the meditative nature of both my mindset—influencing the piece conceptually—and the technical process in which the work was created. This process comes from a long line of abstract field painters. Much like their works, the interlacing, shallow shards of texture in my paintings strike the viewer from a distance before pulling them into the layers of surface detail. However, my art diverges from their completely reactionary process and aligns more with contemporary artists, like Veja Celmins, whose paintings have a more ruminative quality. Consequently, there is no obvious identity; there is only the energy of the movement and the overwhelming vastness of the patterned space. Because they offer no rest for the viewer, the eye looks at them much the way one would look at a fire, or an ocean: one can not just see the surface of the object but must continually look through it to understand it. This creates a poetic mindset that I, as the artist, must enter to create the pieces and you, as the viewer, must enter to enjoy them. I begin the paintings by applying wall texture to hardboard or canvas with palette knives, wide brushes, cardboard, and my hands to create the tactile nature. The drag and pull of the tools build blunt swashes of textures that form edges, undercuts, lines, and overlays. The applied layers of muted acrylic washes stain the surface of the texture giving the image cohesive movement. The washes are applied to the painting from two orientations: lying flat on the ground and standing vertically on the easel. Shifting my vantage point allows me to view the piece from multiple perspectives to make changes and add detail. The shifts in orientation as well as the rotation of the image on all sides during the painting process parallels the conceptual meaning of the work by producing a holistic image that has no sense of true gravity or direction. Any weight or balance that is felt from the paintings is a result of the final step of adding my highlights and shadow areas to re-emphasize the texture in the underlayer. I want the viewers to visually feel the surface of the work and thereby be drawn in to examine the veils of staining and created space. I want them to be lost in the same meditative state while viewing the painting that I entered to create it. My hope is that through this process that not only are my emotions, which I could not otherwise verbalize, expressed, but also that the viewer may leave having experienced them.